Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2016
ReviewReview article: Staff perception of the emergency department working environment: Integrative review of the literature.
Employees in EDs report increasing role overload because of critical staff shortages, budgetary cuts and increased patient numbers and acuity. Such overload could compromise staff satisfaction with their working environment. This integrative review identifies, synthesises and evaluates current research around staff perceptions of the working conditions in EDs. ⋯ A key finding was that perceptions of working environment varied across clinical staff and study location, but that high levels of autonomy and teamwork offset stress around high pressure and high volume workloads. The large range of tools used to assess staff perception of working environment limits the comparability of the studies. A dearth of intervention studies around enhancing working environments in EDs limits the capacity to recommend evidence-based interventions to improve staff morale.
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Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2016
Predictors for urologic intervention and alternate diagnoses in people having computed tomography urography for suspected renal colic.
The majority of ureteric calculi pass spontaneously and are uncomplicated, yet use of computed tomography urography (CTU) has increased in recent years. This study describes a cohort of ED patients undergoing CTU for renal colic and assesses the predictors of urologic intervention. ⋯ Factors associated with urologic intervention included female sex, single kidney, calculus size >5 mm and proximal calculus. Information on acute alternate diagnoses was uncommon. A prospective study is needed to further clarify clinical parameters that could predict intervention to allow targeting of CTU to those most likely to benefit.